Are you in a baseball league that has gotten stale? Maybe the managers are uninvolved or not engaged after about May 15? Do you find it hard to get responses to trade offers or do you find the players you always want are plentiful on the waiver wire due to inactivity? Well, we are here to help! There are myriad ways to make your fantasy baseball league better in 2022.
My oldest home league is about to start its 20th season. There has been plenty of manager turnover in that time, but it’s still hard to get people to stay engaged and involved for that long. That league is a keeper format and year after year we see some managers who struggle to find players worth keeping because their roster the previous year was a baseball wasteland.
If you’re like me, you are looking for ways beyond the obvious to add some life to your league. Sure, you could do the normal things. Make the winnings larger. Find new managers. Restart the league. But there are plenty of creative ways to make your fantasy baseball league experience better in 2022.
5 Ways to Make Your Fantasy Baseball League Better in 2022
Use Better Statistical Categories
You don’t need me to tell you that statistics like wins are becoming more and more worthless and irrelevant. Even the rising popularity of Quality Starts is a problem. An outing that gives up one run in five and two-thirds of an inning is not a Quality Start but one that gives up three runs in six innings is? You’re still using batting average? How retro.
Sites like Fantrax let you customize your new league to your heart’s content. Not happy with Wins or with Quality Starts? Fantrax baseball writer Chris Clegg (@RotoClegg) turned me onto the feature where you can assign values to a range of innings pitched and combine that with a measure of run prevention. It’s all customizable and available for any free league.
If you want to really get weird, start adding things like assists, balls taken, or plate appearances for hitters. There is seemingly an unending supply of baseball stats from which to choose.
On the flip side, one of the most fun leagues I have ever been a part of was a Bad QB league. A league where you got points for things interceptions, incomplete passes, and sacks taken, while also incentivizing playing time. Imagine a Bad Baseball league where Nicky Lopez and Elvis Andrus are kings
Switch to Head-to-Head And Add Weekly Incentives
Almost nothing can energize league members better than some built-in trash-talk opportunity. If you are running straight points or roto-style format, consider going weekly head-to-head in points or roto. Not only do you have micro-matchups all season long, but commissioners can add various incentives to the weekly matchups.
For example, here are some weekly rewards that could be implemented:
- Side pots for anyone who wants some action on their matchup
- Prizes for who had the most points in a week during the season
- Penalties or punishments for managers who fail to meet various weekly thresholds
When I asked on Twitter what would be a good change to make to baseball leagues, this was a popular response.
Play H-2-H in season long. Playoffs. End season in mid-August. Only one catcher, the position sucks. Daily lineups. Have played this way for 12 years now. Dumped Roto long time ago.
— John Laub 🇺🇸 (@GridironSchol91) February 9, 2022
Make it Two Seasons
There is absolutely nothing more frustrating than drafting a stellar squad for the first half of the season just to see it go up in flames because of a couple of ill-timed injuries or fluke performances. The baseball season is so long, it can easily be divided into two separate 80-game seasons. The All-Star Break or the July 4 holiday make for good times to come together and redraft the rest of the season.
Typically, these leagues will determine the playoff teams based on some combined metric from the two parts of the season. My suggestion would be to average or weigh the finishes of teams in each half of the season to determine postseason participants. A team that finished seventh in the first half wouldn’t immediately be ruled out. The second half can save them.
In my experience over the last 20 years, teams in redraft leagues who are out of contention often bail by the All-Star Break. Redrafting at mid-season gives everyone a fresh start with a fresh set of data to help them recover what they might have lost in the previous half.
Invite Your Spouse/Partner/Kids to Play
Trust me, I get it. Plenty of people play fantasy sports as an “escape” from real life or a way to unplug from the family for a bit. But if you and your family are looking for an activity to do together, I recommend either co-managing a team or letting the significant other in your life have a spot in the league.
This is coming from someone whose wife won four of the last eight fantasy football championships in our home league and who also won our home baseball league the first time she played. I promise you, some of the most dedicated, passionate people that play fantasy are the wives of some of my buddies in our longtime leagues.
My son is 10 years old this baseball season and for the first time, I am thinking about trying to get into a league that would be easy for us to do together. Go do a quick search online and on social media and read some of the heartwarming stories of parents and kids who bonded over this game or who used it as a path to navigate through a tough season.
Share the game with those you love. The more people who follow baseball, the better.
Create Unique Side Leagues
Some of my favorite leagues I have ever played in were basically offshoots of some long-time leagues where some fantasy baseball diehards and I just wanted more leagues to play in.
There was a core group of six players from the home league and we created a new “fun” league each year. One year it was a divisional league, so you drafted a division and then could only use players from those five teams. One year it was the Million Dollar League. We could only draft and roster players who made $1 million or less that season. Then there was the Over 30 league (we tried over 35, but that just doesn’t work well). Get creative. There are endless possibilities.
The point is, make sure you are in some league that allows you to have some fun. If you are in several leagues, serving as commissioner, keeping track of fees, agonizing waivers every week, baseball can become a slog. Do something that adds more joy to our fun game.
Clearly the author is unfamiliar with Razzball.
Care to elaborate a bit?